While Alabamians will head to the polls on Nov. 8 to help select the next president, it's actually nine people in the state who officially cast the votes.

Late last month, the Alabama Republican Party picked nine electors to represent the state in the Electoral College - the mechanism used for awarding electoral votes to the presidential candidates. Alabama has nine votes in the Electoral College representing the state's seven House districts and two senators.

During an election at the party's state executive meeting in Huntsville on Aug. 27, former Alabama Rep. Perry Hooper Jr. and Jefferson County GOP Executive Director Grady Thornton as its statewide electors, while the seven other electors were voted on in meetings for each district before the executive committee powwow. Those electors are: Baldwin County Commissioner Frank Burt; 2012 elector and attorney Will Sellers; businessman Jim Wilson; Alabama Rep. Tim Wadsworth; former ALGOP Chairman J. Elbert Peters; ex-Alabama Rep. Mary Sue McClurkin; and Pickens County GOP Chairman Bob Cusanelli.

Alabama, a solidly red state that last voted Democrat in 1980, is all but assured to be in GOP nominee Donald Trump's column on Election Day. The real estate mogul has a 99.8 percent chance of winning the state's nine electoral votes over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, according to FiveThirtyEight's projections.

ALGOP alluded to the near-certainty of the results in a statement setting the date for the electors to meet after the election.

"These nine electors will meet together on Monday, December 19 at noon in Montgomery to cast Alabama's nine votes for Donald Trump for president after he wins the popular vote in Alabama on November 8," the party said in an email.